US reservists are put on standby for transfer to the Middle East at 36 hours notice as the Obama administration gets set for a potential midsummer war if Iran stalls on a nuclear accord or fails to deliver on its commitments – or Israel goes to war on the Islamic Republic.

The shocking impact of the twin explosions which killed 55 people and injured almost 400 in Damascus Thursday, May 10, galvanized Bashar Assad’s allies, starting with Iran, into frenetic activity. Within hours, Tehran had ordered its Lebanese proxy Hizballah to open up its arms stores and run quantities of weapons and military equipment across the border to the Syrian army. Iran then started organizing a security camera network for Damascus. Moscow judged the bombings a serious escalation in the conspiracy to topple Bashar Assad.

A year after the death of its iconic leader Osama bin Laden at the hands of US special forces, Al Qaeda is making an operational comeback, notably in North Africa and Syria. The suicide bombings hitting Damascus and Idlib in the last 24 hours were the work of Al Qaeda in Iraq – AQI, whose operatives have been pouring into Syria in the last two weeks, debkafile reports. Without US intervention, al Qaeda will be able to use Syria for attacking its neighbors too, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey agree to set up a joint command for coordinating preparations for a combined invasion of Syria and the creation of buffer zones protected by their air forces. Ankara is putting pressure on NATO to help defend Turkish borders against Iranian reprisal. Both partners plus France want American to jump in too.

On March 25, in Seoul, President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan agreed on the six-point US policy outline the latter would carry to the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ahead of Iran’s forthcoming nuclear talks with six world powers. The exercise was not a success. Khamenei has still not answered the president’s missive and Tehran has turned its guns on Erdogan. The six points published here were first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weeklyon March 29.

Not 24 hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that a pre-emptive strike (by the US and/or Israel) would violate international law, Moscow put muscle into his warning: Tuesday, April 3, the Russian guided missile destroyer Smetliviy arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus for a naval exercise. The ship, which carries anti-air, anti-ship and anti-submarine missiles, will hold drills with its support vessels in the same expanse of E. Mediterranean as the US-Israeli-Greek “Noble Dina” exercise.

The US President has tacitly indicated to the Iranian leader that if elected to a second term he will have more room for maneuver and a freer hand for pursuing policies agreed in their back-channel dialogue. So please, Iranian officials, speak more kindly about America.

Obama’s Grand Diplomatic Offensive for using a pacified Syria to persuade Iran to be accommodating at the coming nuclear negotiations is not yet in the bag. It is dogged by Saudi objections and problems with its policy Syria due to flawed US intelligence both about Assad’s survivability and the opposition’s cohesiveness.

Erdogan won an ultra-cool welcome in Tehran after he was discovered pumping anti-tank missiles to the Syrian rebels after Bashar Assad began helping Turkey’s PKK Kurdish faction. His Iranian hosts gave him the runaround before he was received by Khamenei to hand over Barack Obama’s message.

Israel boosted its Syrian and Lebanese border units as special flights carrying thousands of pro-Palestinian activists from Tehran touched down in Damascus for the international Global March to Jerusalem Friday, March 30. Before takeoff, they were split into small groups and tutored by Iranian Al Qods Brigades officers in tactics for breaching Israeli border barriers, bursting through and challenging the Israeli military forces defending the border. They go into action on Palestinian-backed Israel-Arab Earth Day to match disturbances in Israel and the West Bank.

Despite Israeli warnings, the Palestinian Authority is for the first time making the annual Israeli-Arab Earth Day Friday, March 30 a joint Palestinian-Israel Arab event, organizing mass anti-Israel disturbances in Jerusalem, Jaffa and other places, while also instigating West Bankers to smash through Israeli border checkpoints. Syria too will bus thousands of Palestinians to storm Israel’s northern border on the Golan. Both also aim to shake up the Arab summit in Baghdad. The PA is broke after Arab aid was cut off.

The 23rd Arab summit, the first to be held in Baghdad in more than two decades, opens Tuesday March 27 after Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki bowed to Saudi and Gulf Emirates’ demand not to invite Iran and receive only a low-ranking Syrian official. Although the city is in lockdown, Western security sources doubt it is 100 percent safe from terrorists, whether al Qaeda or Bashar Assad’s henchmen in revenge for the arms and aid certain Arab rulers tender Syrian rebels.

Riyadh sees Iran counting its profits from sanctions-boosted oil prices regardless of extra Saudi pumping. Washington blocked the sale of arms for a Saudi strike against Iran and shut the Jordanian route for Saudi troops to enter Syria. The two Kings Abdullah are at odds.

Russia like Iran was the prime helper and is the prime beneficiary of Bashar Assad’s success in crushing the armed revolt against him and gives Vladimir kudos at the start of his presidency. His foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was enabled to call the shots for the 22-member Arab League.

Iran and Russia poured out every kind of assistance to shore Assad up – military, intelligence, financial, diplomatic and strategic as well as a supply of arms for crushing the opposition. Iran’s reward is the substantial strengthening of its alliance with Syria, Hizballah and Palestinian extremists. Hamas too is staying in the Iranian fold.

Iran and Russia both won ground on the Syrian battlefield at America’s expense with this week’s Assad victory over rebels in Idlib, say DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s strategic analysts in its next issue out Friday. The indecisive way the Israeli confrontation with Iran’s Palestinian proxy Jihad Islami wound down also added points to Tehran - and Moscow less directly - after Washington backed away from the Gaza episode and Israel threw in the sponge. These players were testing the ground for a possible Israeli-Iranian clash.
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When the Saudis discovered the US was backing off military operations against both Iran and Syria, they retaliated by letting oil prices float upward without lifting a finger. This week oil prices hit an all-time high carrying the message to Barack Obama: Either attack Iran, or we’ll let oil prices rocket up to $150 per barrel - and you won’t be re-elected in November.

Opposite the fragmented Free Syrian Army rebels, Assad’s army is suffering from the spreading malaise of “defections in place,” a mutiny of complete units with their officers who defy orders but refrain from crossing to the opposition. Why did the Syrian ruler prevent two Iranian warships from entering Tartus port?

The upgrading and interconnection of two Russian-equipped Middle East electronic and surveillance stations – on Jabal Al Harrah south of Damascus opposite Israel’s Sea of Galilee, and Lebanon’s Mt. Sannine - are tailored by Moscow to give Tehran early warning of a US or Israeli attack, debkafile reports. The two facilities now cover all of Israel and Jordan, the Gulf of Aqaba and northern Saudi Arabia, as well as US and Israeli naval and aerial Mediterranean movements up to Cyprus and Greece.

The US Pentagon and Israel’s high command are taking Tehran’s threat of preemptive action with the utmost seriousness as changing the rules of the standoff. It was issued to provide Iran with grounds for claiming international legitimacy for any preemptive military action launched against Israel or American targets as lawful self-defense.